Why would you think something is wrong with it? I did a shoot out between uln2 and Avalon last night the noise floor is about the same, the pre itself on Avalon is decent, I just want a bit more warmth and presence for that in your face sound.. Perhaps I didn't really know how to use it. So I did some studying and figured out how to de-ess on it. It's a beutiful unit maybe has 50 hours on it that's all.

Why would you think something is wrong with it? I did a shoot out between uln2 and Avalon last night the noise floor is about the same, the pre itself on Avalon is decent, I just want a bit more warmth and presence for that in your face sound.. Perhaps I didn't really know how to use it. So I did some studying and figured out how to de-ess on it. It's a beutiful unit maybe has 50 hours on it that's all.

I thought that your unit could be wrong because of your initial description:

Quote:

Originally Posted by pzhuravel

...the tone that comes out those sovtek tubes makes my earwax boil!

If the pre is decent and what you want is a warmer sound you have at least two choices: to change the tubes or adjust the input and output gain (and the compressor) of the unit properly as suggested by phatbeatstudio. In any case in my opinion the 737's main virtue is not an extreme presence.

Thank for your reply steely. What I meant with all of that is when i record it sounds fine until I start blowing the sound up with compression to get it loud enough.. Then funky frequencies creep up. And this happens no only to vocals, but guitars and Keyes as well. It has this unpleasant resonance that is manageable with eq's but I don't like using them, and if I compress with avon it has pretty significant noise floor that I don't particularly found of. So I figured it might be the tubes but I may be wrong after I started this post I made additional shoot outs and learned that I was using the unit incorrectly. I'm going to do a baby face mod on it and see if I can correct those tones with a faster attack and a de-esser, if that does not work tubes would be my next guess..

Also do you think that a certain kind of tubes will give me that in your face presence or should I be looking at a whole different unit for that?

To get that in your face presence (Norah Jones) is not just a matter of equipment. Effectively the 737 compressor is rather slow and the Baby face modification could help. Obviously using a second compressor (1176) in series would make things easier.

In any case I still think you can achieve excellent vocals with the 737 in its original conditions. There are countless recordings to prove it. I suggest you try various settings before you spend more money(sorry I had forgotten that we are in GS).

I do not think different tubes will dramatically improve presence.

What I do not really understand are the resonances of your unit when using the compressor. I had never had that problem with my 737. Perhaps these resonances are already in the source (room, microphone ..)?

Also do you think that a certain kind of tubes will give me that in your face presence or should I be looking at a whole different unit for that?

I`ve been using the factory tubes for 12 years now and two 737s. I don`t think you need any other tubes... The most powerful aspect of the 737 is the EQ, try throwing it on the signal after the compression. Lots of users don`t know the power of the 737, often citing it as "dull". They give up on it too easily.

Some tips...
Drive the input, back off the output for a warmer tone and some "character".